1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the use of coherent energy processes for high powered pulse lasers, in the shock processing of solid materials, and more particularly, to methods and apparatuses to accurately control the laser peening process in a production environment.
2. Description of the Related Art
Known methods of shock processing solid materials and particularly laser shock processing solid materials using coherent energy, as from a laser, orient the laser beam normal, i.e., perpendicular, to the workpiece.
Particular constraints of laser processing are formed based on the shape of material or other geometric factors such as, attempting to laser shock harden integrally bladed rotors (IBRs), blind bores, slots, or dove-tailed sections. The laser beam utilized may not have a direct line-on-sight access to the area to be shock processed. Laser shock processing techniques and equipment can be found in U.S. Pat. No. 5,131,957 to Epstein.
Production problems occur with the placement and location of the workpiece to be processed. Particular pieces of information such as knowing the present and actual location of the workpiece, along with determining whether the laser peening system has hit the workpiece where the control program has instructed the laser to do so are important to part quality and reproducibility of results.
What is needed in the art is an automatic system for determining and controlling laser peening process variables.